Living Well Through Education & Nutrition

Omega-3 Fish Oil lowers blood pressure and triglyceride levels

Another holiday season has come and gone. Now part of our collective memory, the endless feasts and parties with friends and family have morphed into a number of extra pounds on our waistlines. As 2014 beckons, we reflect upon our New Year’s resolutions, particularly, how we plan to better manage our health from this point forward.

Getting regular exercise is high on the list. So is eating right. We know from past experience that it’s far easier to embark on a simple plan that doesn’t require lots of thinking or effort on our part. We also want to be assured that others have successfully followed this same path before – that we aren’t trailblazing a new direction entirely on our own.

“A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.”
-Lao Tzu

While joining a gym, playing tennis regularly, and bicycling or jogging a minimum number of miles every week are worthy goals, when pursued simultaneously they may prove to be overly ambitious and daunting. Often times it’s more effective and advantageous to start with ‘baby steps’ and refrain from tackling multiple goals at once. Build on small successes first, then work toward completing the more challenging objectives, one-at-a-time.

Essential for good health, Omega-3 fatty acids must be obtained from dietary sources, as our bodies cannot manufacture them internally. However, a different form of fatty acid – Omega-6’s – dominate the makeup of the modern diet, primarily due to the heavy deployment of highly refined vegetable oils in the food supply. As noted by respected authorities such as Dr. Andrew Weil and Dr. Oz, the imbalance between these two essential fatty acids has been found to be a contributor to modern diseases such as inflammation.

Omega-3 fatty acids are naturally found in a small number of plants and nuts as well as fish such as krill, salmon, sardines, and anchovies. Oil obtained from the fatty tissues of cold water fish is a rich source of two essential Omega-3 fatty acids: EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid). Alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) is another type of Omega-3 that is prevalent in walnuts, chia, flaxseed, and olives which the body can convert in small quantities to DHA. The health benefits of taking ALA is not as well established or known as EPA and DHA.

Over the years, many articles have been written about the inherent risks of consuming fish tainted with detectable amounts of mercury, dioxin, PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), and other contaminants. An advanced technology called molecular distillation is used by many manufacturers to separate these contaminants from crude fish oil, leaving behind just the two key Omega-3 fatty acids – EPA and DHA. Equally important, the molecular distillation process is both fast and gentle to the fish oil in order to protect the fatty acids from breaking down and turning rancid.